New research highlights different functionality of men’s and women’s brains
By Leah Bjornson
Photos by Vaikunthe Banerjee
Illustrations by Eleanor Qu
Introduction
Have you ever felt that you just can’t understand the opposite sex? Don’t worry, you’re not alone when you can’t figure out why your girlfriend suddenly bursts into tears while you’re playing Call of Duty, or your boyfriend becomes deathly quiet during dinner with your parents. Or perhaps it’s your best friend who’s difficult to read when, after a long day at work, he doesn’t have the strength to return your texts.
Such miscommunication can leave relationships feeling pretty helpless, but don’t feel completely impotent. Recent advances in the study of the human brain have demonstrated that failing to understand the opposite sex is not all your fault; rather, some of it comes down to science.
These studies suggest that men’s and women’s brains are hardwired in very different ways, providing scientific support for the idea that women are from Venus and men are from Mars. All jokes aside, while men and women are still very similar, certain cliches like men not asking for directions or women responding emotionally are at least partially based on the different workings of the sexes’ brains.
Far from condemning the sexes to separation defined by their distinguishing characteristics, this knowledge may help men and women understand how each other’s brains work, thus helping them to improve their relationships.
It’s not the size, mate; it’s how you use it
It seems that Borat’s Kazakhstani doctors were right, in a sense: men’s brains are 8 to 10 per cent bigger than women’s. However, this does not mean that men are smarter than women (you wouldn’t say an elephant is smarter than a human just because its brain is larger, either); they simply have larger heads. In fact, women were shown to have greater activity than men in 112 of the 128 regions of the brain, based on the rate of blood flow to given areas while being measured by an MRI. But again, increased activity does not equal intelligence, it just means women’s brain are a lot more busy, while men’s brains are a lot quieter.
Nevertheless, there are parts of men’s and women’s brains that do differ in size, and this is significant in what it means for each sex’s nature. When a certain part of the brain is large, this is taken to mean that there is more activity happening in that sector — the person is using this part of their brain frequently. Therefore, the size of different parts of the brain in women and men can be very telling when it comes to their behaviour.
After comparing 26,000 brain scans, U.S. neuroscientist Dr Daniel Amen found that parts of the frontal lobe were proportionally larger in women than in men. This part of the brain governs decision-making and problem-solving. Additionally, women have more pre-frontal cortex brain cells — the region controlling judgment, planning and conscientiousness. This also governs impulse control, which may explain why women tend to look before they leap more than men.
In men, the parietal cortex and the amygdala covered a larger area — these parts of the brain are involved in spatial perception and the fight or flight responses, respectively. The researchers suggested this meant men would probably be able to orient themselves better in a complex building and often sense danger more quickly.
Pain
Sissies, pussies, girls — in our culture, men risk being called any number of names if they ever show that they feel pain. Lucky for them, men are in general less sensitive to touch and therefore feel less pain than women.
The difference is due to sex hormones: estrogen and testosterone, those tricky bastards, effect lots of changes in the human body, including the triggers in the brain that correlate to emotional and physiological experiences of pain. Women are affected more emotionally by pain than men. As such, they are more likely to report this pain and ask for sympathy. When men do the same, our culture labels this as being weak or feminine.
Just as women are more sensitive to pain than men, they’re also three times more likely to experience migraines. Again, we can in part thank fluctuating hormones, but the main cause is the female brain’s intrinsic excitability. According to animal-based research by Dr Andrew Charles, director of the headache research and treatment programme at the University of California, women’s brains react more strongly to stimulus — lights, noise, movement — which in turn causes migraines. In men, the stimulus needs to be three times bigger than this to cause a migraine. What is this, a stimulus for ants?
Mental Illness
Recent studies have provided much knowledge that can help the sexes better understand each other, but they also provide information about what to expect in the future. Reports surrounding dementia, Alzheimer’s, and depression (while not authoritative in their predictions) can help us know to some extent what to expect when we’re old.
Women have better long-term memories than men as a result of increased activity in the hippocampus. While this might not be a surprise to the countless girlfriends who need to remind their significant others of their anniversary or birthdays, what might be shocking is how this affects mature women.
Nearly seven per cent of women over the age of 75 have some form of dementia, compared with five per cent of men. Women also have faster cognitive decline than men, meaning diseases like Alzheimer’s affect women more quickly and fatally (20 per cent more women die of Alzheimer’s than men).
The severity of Alzheimer’s can be traced to the effects of estrogen and testosterone. These hormones protect against neurodegeneration, but after early menopause — defined as occurring before 48 — estrogen levels for women drop dramatically. Scientists believe early menopause, especially if women have had partial hysterectomies, aka their ovaries removed, the likelihood of these women developing Alzheimer’s can increase by 70 per cent.
Are these statistics bringing you down, ladies? That, too, can be explained by science. Differences in the limbic area (emotional processor) of the brain also make women more likely to view situations negatively. This means women tend to worry more, and sleep less, which can cause depression. In fact, women are twice as likely to experience major depression than men.
However, there is hope. Women show rapid response to antipsychotic medication, most likely because of how the medication reacts with estrogen. Men aren’t as fortunate in this respect, and have a more difficult time recovering from mental illness.
They are also twice as likely to develop schizophrenia than women, especially concentrated within the 15 to 25 age range. This may be a result of men’s inferior parietal lobule, which is 16 per cent smaller as compared to women. This crucial part of the brain affects the visual, auditory, and key sensory areas — areas which, when out of whack, result in schizophrenia.
Feed me, Seymour
A lot of people might be under the misconception that men can eat and eat and eat and never gain a pound, while women have to be really careful about their diet or else risk gaining weight. Science suggests this might be an exercise in madness: women need to eat more than men to feel as satiated. Studies have shown that on average, women have reduced activity in the hypothalamus, which controls feelings of hunger. Therefore, they have to eat more to activate it into creating a sense of feeling full.
Cravings between the sexes also vary: women crave sugar and fat, while men crave meat. Scientists point to an evolutionary basis for these differences, as men have traditionally needed to hunt, survive, and pass on their genes. On the contrary, women traditionally needed more fat stores to help the babies they were responsible for having to develop.
Excess fat stores also help produce sex hormones such as estrogen. Scientists propose that it’s these hormones that may cause the differences in cravings, explaining why women’s cravings may change during their menstrual cycle when estrogen levels are higher. Chocolate, anyone?
Stressing out
It’s fairly obvious that everyone responds to stress in different ways. Some may retreat into seclusion, others might lash out aggressively. These responses are controlled by an almond-sized part of the brain called the amygdala. This part of the brain processes fear, aggression and action — action that differs greatly between men and women.
The male amygdala is activated to a greater extent on the right side. This triggers the ‘fight or flight’ response, and so men under stress may deal best with it by letting off some steam or having space for themselves.
The female amgydala is more active on the left side, which activates the brain’s attachment system and releases more of the hormone oxytocin. This section is associated with feelings of love, calm, protection, and safety, and triggers what has been dubbed the “tend and befriend” response. Therefore, it makes sense that a woman would want to share with friends and receive assurance during stressful times. It makes double sense that a man might not understand why a stressed out female would need his support, seeing as how the male response would be one of self-help and/or isolation.
Reading emotions
One of the most curious differences between men and women involves men’s failure to understand women’s emotions. Although better at reading the emotions of other men, male subjects had twice as much trouble interpreting women’s emotions from images of their eyes.
When the men looked at images of other men’s eyes, parts of the amygdala tied to empathy and fear activated more strongly than when the men looked at images of women’s eyes. Other parts of the male brain connected with emotion also failed to react when trying to understand the women’s feelings.
This “theory of mind” — the ability to understand others’ emotions and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one’s own — is a crucial component of empathy, the deficit of which could mean men have lower levels of empathy relative to women.
But why do they understand the emotions of men better than those of women? It’s not just a symptom of bromance. One possible explanation is that men have been conditioned in our patriarchal society to pay less attention to women’s emotions. Considering a more evolutionary explanation once again, it might be that men’s better understanding of other men’s emotions came from their need to predict and foresee the intentions and actions of male rivals.
Conclusion
It would not be fair to say that these findings are universal and conclusive; some of the information has been called into question, based on the research methods involved as well as other processes. Additionally, this wiring does not mean that our reactions are completely predetermined. In any circumstance, there is a high degree of choice and situational factors at play. Events in one’s past could also affect, and perhaps overrule, how the brain is wired; whether the relations between the sexes will be attributed to nature or nurture in the end is left to be seen.
In any case, it seems fair to say that how we respond to many situations is affected, at least in part, by how our brain is wired. However, this information is not meant to be used an excuse; it is instead a path towards greater comprehension. By understanding how we function, it becomes easier to analyse how we react to different circumstances and improve how we communicate. Similarly, it’s important to know how members of the other sex process so that we can properly interpret their actions. This isn’t to say that there isn’t diversity within the sexes, but science is bringing us closer to bridging the gap.
